Authors: Tim Waggoner
Though it was closing in on three in the morning, Marshall still wore his suit. It had been a busy night and he was bone-weary. It took an effort to walk up the steps to Sanctity’s second floor, and he thought,
The years must finally be catching up with me
.
After Joanne and Dale had left, he’d been forced to play host to visiting relatives for the remainder of the evening. After-dinner cocktails liberally seasoned with stultifying conversation — most of it from lower-ranking family members desperate to curry favor with him — eventually culminating in a Gathering before the Reliquary. Leading the ceremony always took a great deal out of him, so much so that he’d almost begged off tonight, but considering the current situation in the county, he’d gone through with it. Who knows? Perhaps it would help.
But now that the relatives were bedded down for the night — finally — and the servants had finished clearing away the detritus of the evening’s revels, Marshall could get some sleep … after performing one final task.
He reached the second floor and made his way through the halls without aid of illumination, for no member of the family, even those coming to Sanctity for the first time, needed light to help find their way around. He stopped when he came to Lenora’s bedroom and took hold of the doorknob, but he hesitated before turning it. He knew it wasn’t locked. No door in Sanctity was. But his relationship with Lenora was strained enough as it was, and he was reluctant to damage it any further by checking up on her as if she were a little girl. Nevertheless, he was the family’s Second, the one responsible for seeing to its affairs in the outer world. And most importantly, he was Lenora’s father. He
had
to check on her.
But before Marshall could open the door, his cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He stepped back into the middle of the hallway to answer it, already knowing he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
“Yes?” he said in a hushed voice.
It was Glenn Gilman, a firefighter who over the years had racked up a truly impressive amount of debt betting on college football — debt Marshall had made disappear in exchange for the man’s lifelong service. He listened without comment as Glenn told him about a fire at the Caffeine Café and, though the details weren’t clear as yet, some sort of disturbance at Debbie Coulter’s house. When the man was finished, Marshall disconnected without saying a word. He slipped the phone back into his pocket, walked up to Lenora’s door, turned the door knob, and entered. His fingers found the light switch on the wall, and he flipped it on.
Lenora’s bedding was in disarray, but his daughter was nowhere to be seen.
Come dawn, only a blackened husk remained of the Caffeine Café. The charred wood still smoldered in places despite having been drenched by fire hoses, and the parking lot was a wet, sooty mess. The air stank of burnt plastic and wiring, and breathing in the acrid stench coated the throat and sinuses with a greasy chemical residue. The firefighters were gone, having done everything they could, and now it was up to the Sheriff’s Department to deal with the remains. Though just what they could do, Joanne — as the saying went in law enforcement — hadn’t a goddamned clue.
She stood in the café’s empty parking lot, almost in the same spot where she’d stood yesterday morning. News vans were parked on the street, and the on-the-scene reporters stood in front of cameramen, hair and makeup impeccable though the sun had barely risen above the eastern horizon. Joanne wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that these men and women weren’t human, but rather newsdroids that were activated whenever a big story broke. That would certainly explain their always-perfect hair and clothes, along with their empty bright gazes and plastic smiles.
They’d already finished getting a statement from her, not that she had a lot to tell them, and now they were fighting for Marshall’s attention — which was just fine with Joanne. For once she was grateful for him showing up at the scene of an investigation. Her head throbbed so much she felt like she’d mainlined a case of tequila last night. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to anyone, especially more newsdroids. The “local community leader” could keep the media at bay so she could do her job.
“What would you like me to do, Sheriff?”
Ronnie spoke in a normal tone of voice, but his words sounded loud as cannon fire to her ears and set her skull to pounding harder.
“I appreciate you coming to work today, Ronnie, but I think the rest of us have the situation in hand.”
As soon as she said it, shed wished she’d chosen her words more carefully. Ronnie’s right hand — gloveless for a change — was swollen, fingers bent at sickening angles, the puffy skin bruised a nasty blue-black. He wore his arm in a sling, and from what she could see it was his sole concession to his injury.
She hurried on. “I’ve got people both out here and over at Debbie Coulter’s.” Not long after she’d regained consciousness, she’d called in every deputy to work the two crime scenes. But once she saw Ronnie’s injured hand — the result, he said, of slipping and falling on rain-slick pavement outside the state crime lab in Columbus — she’d started having second thoughts about calling him in. Not only did his hand look awful, she knew he had to be hurting bad because he’d not only shown up without gloves on either hand, he wasn’t wearing a surgical mask and, for the first time since she’d met him, he hadn’t shaved before coming to work. His hair was unkempt and oily, too, and she thought he hadn’t showered. Before today she would’ve thought it impossible for Ronnie to neglect his hygiene like this. He must be in agony, she thought. It was the only explanation for his appearance.
“Why don’t you go to the hospital and get your hand looked at?” she said. “Bad as it looks, something’s sure to be broken. You need to get it set.” Hell, he’d probably need surgery.
“I went to the ER in Columbus after I dropped off the evidence. The docs said it looks a lot worse than it is. I should be fine, long as I can keep from bumping it into anything. Besides, they gave me some great pain pills.” He grinned, displaying yellow-tinged teeth. His breath smelled stale and foul, and Joanne realized he hadn’t brushed his teeth.
No big deal, she thought. He’d probably gotten home late last night, taken his pain meds, and conked out. When he’d gotten the call to come in this morning, she figured he’d been too groggy to do anything other than get dressed and stumble out the door. Still, he didn’t
look
groggy. His eyes were bright and alert, and there was a gleam in them she couldn’t remember seeing before.
“Not to be disrespectful,” Ronnie said, “but have
you
been to the hospital yet? A head injury is nothing to mess around with.”
“I’m feeling all right,” she lied. “If I start to get worse, I’ll go get checked out, okay?” She thought for a moment. “If you’re feeling up to it, I suppose you could work crowd control. It was so early that not many looky-loo’s had arrived yet, but that was sure to change as the morning wore on.
“Sounds good, Sheriff.” Ronnie’s gaze flicked to where Marshall stood talking with an attractive model-thin redhead from Action Eye News. The gleam she’d detected a moment ago intensified for an instant, and if she hadn’t known Ronnie better, she would’ve described the look he gave Marshall as one of cold hatred. But then the deputy returned his gaze to her, showed his yellowed teeth in a smile once more, then headed off to get to work.
Something wasn’t right here, but Joanne’s head hurt too much for her to think straight.
Maybe I should ask Ronnie for some of his meds
, she thought.
She turned to look as a Jeep pulled up to join the caravan of sheriff’s cruisers, newsvans, and Marshall’s hummer. The newsdroids got excited at the prospect of having a new face to shove their microphones into, but when they saw Dale get out of the vehicle, their interest died. Reporters only interviewed another reporter when they were desperate.
Dale kept glancing around as he walked across the parking lot toward Joanne. At first she thought he was taking in the scene, noting details that he would write about later. But there was a nervousness verging on desperation to his manner that made her think about the way he’d behaved last night when they’d parted company at Sanctity. Was everyone in this goddamned county going crazy?
As Dale joined her, he said, “In my completely unprofessional medical opinion, you look like shit.”
“Right back at you.”
The flesh beneath Dale’s eyes was swollen and dark, and the eyes themselves seemed to have receded into the sockets somewhat since last she’d seen him. His wrinkles were more pronounced, the lines longer and deeper, and the skin hung lax on his face. His hair and beard were in disarray, and his suit was rumpled, his tie loose and hanging askew.
“I got ambushed like a rookie last night and got hit on the head by a rock,” she said. “What’s your excuse?”
Dale hesitated before replying. “I drove all night. Thinking.”
“The
whole
night?”
He shrugged. “I had a lot to think about.”
Joanne thought he was telling her the truth — he certainly looked like he’d been up all night — but not the entire truth.
“Look, Dale, you know I try to respect your privacy, but I’m really starting to worry about you. Tell me what’s going on. I’m your friend. I can help.”
Dale smiled wearily. “I appreciate that, Joanne. More than I can say. But the problem I have right now is one that I really don’t want to share — with anyone. I’ll find a way to shake it. Somehow.”
Joanne was about to tell Dale that she had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but before she could speak, Marshall detached himself from the newsdroids and came toward them. As soon as his back was to the cameras, his smile fell away and a troubled look came over his features. He stopped when he reached them and stared at the Café’s ruins for a moment.
“This is starting to piss me off.”
His voice was low and dangerous. There was anger and frustration in his tone, and Joanne thought she detected a bit of fear as well, though she couldn’t imagine he’d ever admit to it.
“Join the club,” she said. She saw no point in wasting time, so she asked, “How much do the two of you know?”
The three compared notes and, as she expected, both Dale and Marshall were already up to speed on last night’s events for the most part. Dale had his police scanner and Marshall … well, Marshall had his own information network spread throughout the county. She quickly filled in the blanks for them.
When she finished, Marshall asked, “Where is Debbie now?”
“At Resurrection Hospital,” Joanne said. “I assigned a deputy to guard her room, with strict orders not to leave his post for any reason short of the end of the world.”
“A number of the family work there,” Marshall said. “I’ll make sure they keep watch over her.” He took out his cell phone and stepped away from Joanne and Dale to make the call.
“Must be nice to be a puppetmaster,” Dale said with a sneer.
“Depends on the puppets,” Joanne replied. She glanced at Ronnie. He was walking the perimeter of the scene to make sure no unauthorized personnel came too close, but his gaze remained fixed on Marshall.
“So what do we have?” Dale said. “The person who killed Tyrone and attacked you matches the description Tyrone gave of the vandal who spray-painted Debbie’s car and broke into the café.”
“Not much to go on. Anyone could wear a hooded sweatshirt. Other than a rough similarity in physical type, there’s nothing to prove they were the same person. Tyrone didn’t get a good look at the vandal’s features the other night, and I didn’t see my attacker clearly either.”
Marshall had finished his call and now rejoined them. Dale nodded toward the cluster of TV reporters.
“I guess even the vaunted Cross connections couldn’t keep the vultures at bay forever.”
Marshall ignored him and addressed Joanne. “I overheard what you were discussing.”
Joanne didn’t bother asking how Marshall could have listened in on their conversation at the same time he was talking on his phone several yards away. It was one more in a number of weird things she was beginning to take for granted about him.
“What about Debbie?” he continued. “Did she get a good look at whoever it was?”
“Hard to say. After I came to I found her still standing in the street. I questioned her, but the stress of the last couple nights must’ve gotten to her, and she wasn’t in her right mind. All she could tell me was that her son had come back to her.”
Marshall raised an eyebrow. “She thinks the killer is literally Carl Coulter?”
“As near as I can tell,” Joanne said.
“But the descriptions both you and Tyrone gave don’t match Carl’s physical type,” Dale said.
Joanne almost laughed. “You sound as if you believe it’s possible for a man executed in prison to come back to life years later and pick up where he left off.”
Marshall didn’t respond, and when Joanne looked at Dale, he had a thoughtful, worried expression on his face. She wanted to tell them that they were both nuts, but then she thought of how she’d seen Carl in the Deveraux barn and of the dream she’d had of him last night. Suddenly the two men standing with her no longer seemed quite so crazy.
“Last night’s events would seem to strongly link Ray Porter’s murder and the original break-in at the café,” Marshall said. “Let’s assume for the moment that it was the same person who committed all of these crimes. The big question before us is why whoever it is didn’t kill Joanne once she was unconscious.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” she muttered.
“Don’t joke like that,” Marshall said, then he surprised her by reaching out and gently squeezing her hand. “Your death would be an unbearable loss to the county.”
He still had hold of her hand, and she had to resist the urge to squeeze back.
“Just
to the county?”
He held her hand a moment longer before finally letting go.
“At the risk of making a pun,” Dale said, “could we please get back to the business at hand?”